


Cold as Ice

by JaskiersWolf



Series: Canon Era Geraskier Prompts [9]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Drowning, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Loves Jaskier | Dandelion, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt/Comfort, Ice Skating, Injury Recovery, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, Love Confessions, M/M, Major Character Injury, Monsters, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Winter At Kaer Morhen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:20:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28527606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaskiersWolf/pseuds/JaskiersWolf
Summary: Ciri persuades Geralt and Jaskier to go ice-skating outside Kaer Morhen, but there's something lurking under the ice.
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Canon Era Geraskier Prompts [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1982815
Comments: 14
Kudos: 236





	Cold as Ice

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Canon-typical violence, drowning, angst, injury, but no death.

Jaskier was having the best time. He’d finally been invited to the elusive witcher’ keep in the Blue Mountains. Ciri, Geralt’s child surprise, had done wonders for his friend. Geralt was actually starting to open up to him. He’d spent decades of slowly chipping away at Geralt’s walls and worming his way into the witcher’s life, and the young princess had managed it in a matter of days. If Jaskier had doubted Destiny before then he certainly wouldn’t any longer. It had also been Ciri’s influence on Geralt that had forced the two estranged friends to reunite. Ciri had been devastated to learn that Geralt was no longer travelling with the famous bard, Jaskier, and practically begged Geralt to go and find him.

Jaskier had been in the middle of teaching a class when the door had flung open to reveal a very soggy Geralt of Rivia, dripping mud all over the floor. Ciri’s head had popped out from behind Geralt. Her long ashen hair had been hidden under a hat but Jaskier had recognised the emerald green eyes of Pavetta immediately. Jaskier had dismissed his class and the three of them had spent the next few hours awkwardly catching up in the classroom. Geralt’s apology had seemed genuine enough and Ciri was an utter delight so Jaskier agreed to join his ex-former friend once more.

Geralt was warmer with Ciri around and by the gods was that doing funny things to his heart. Geralt’s cruel words on the mountain had shattered the spell the witcher held over him. His puppy love crush on his best friend and melted away after weeks of sobbing every night in his rooms at Oxenfurt. Time apart had helped him to see his time with Geralt in a new light. The rose-tinted glasses faded away and his ballads became grittier and less like a fairytale, but now being around Geralt again he could see why he had loved him so irrevocably and for so long. There was a vulnerability in the witcher that he desperately tried to hide, a yearning for acceptance and love but the fear of being known. The duality of it tickled Jaskier’s curiosity and he so desperately wanted to know more, even after all these years of following Geralt.

He wanted to know Geralt’s warmth. He wanted that daft fond smile and fucking hell he wanted to love him, even after everything.

“Jaskier!” Ciri flew towards him in a blur. She’d been training with the witchers and it showed. She’d already been a fierce young princess before the training had commenced but she’d taken to the witchers’ workouts like a duck to water. Jaskier tried to balance it out with lessons in art and poetry but the princess would rather have a sword in hand than his lute. “Jaskier, Geralt is taking me to the frozen lake to go ice-skating! You have to come!”

Jaskier laughed and set aside the book he’d been reading. He tried to stay inside the warmth of the keep but he was a travelling bard, and his natural wanderlust was starting to itch under his skin. He hadn’t been ice-skating since he was child at Lettenhove. It would be fun. Maybe he could even convince Geralt to join them on the ice, he could pretend it was a sort of date?

Nah. That would be pathetic. He was above that.

“Ice-skating you say?”

Ciri nodded with a mischievous grin dancing on her lips. “It’s taken days of nagging but I finally wore him down.”

“Well then, come on! Let’s get our coats and gloves. Sadly, we’re only human, young witcher girl. We need to wrap up warm.”

* * *

If Jaskier had thought Ciri was a blur before, it was nothing compared to her skating. She streaked across the ice like lightning. It was as if she were some kind of mythical ice spirit. Her turquoise cloak flew out behind her and her long blonde hair whipped around her face as sharp blades cut into the ice. Geralt was watching from the shore, squatting under a tree with the hilt of his steel sword resting under his chin. Jaskier was a little unsteady on his feet. The ice was slipperier than he remembered and he was out of practice.

“Come on, bard!” Ciri giggled as she skated circles around him. He hissed and stumbled, almost falling on his arse for the third time.

“Leave him alone, Ciri,” Geralt called from the shore.

Jaskier winked at the witcher as he steadied himself. “I knew you cared!”

Geralt just rolled his eyes and shook his head but Jaskier knew his friend was secretly smiling under all his grumbling.

Ciri began to show off, jumping high in the air and spinning like a tornado. It was incredible. The rhymes and melodies about the Ice Princess were already forming in his mind. His fingers flexed as he itched for a quill or his lute. He would need to go back to the shore with Geralt. He needed to write this down before the idea faded away.

“Geralt?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you bring my notebook in that bag of yours?”

Geralt sighed and pulled out Jaskier’s small leather-bound book where he scrawled most of his composing. Jaskier grinned and started to stumble back to solid ground when the ice cracked and he heard Ciri’s scream.

“Shit!” Geralt grabbed his silver sword and began running across the ice.

Jaskier spun round to see a kikimora crawling across the ice towards Ciri. It’s long spindly legs were scratching and sliding all over the ice. Ciri screamed again and Jaskier was thrown backwards. He landed hard against the ice and it cracked underneath him.

“Bollocks!” He tried to grip the ice but his gloves were soaked through and his legs fell into the icy water. “Geralt!”

“Jaskier!”

The ice was freezing and he couldn’t breathe. His fingers slipped on the ice and he fell underneath the surface. The water burned his lungs as he gasped. Fuck it was so cold. He could still hear Ciri’s screaming even through the water. He tried to swim upwards but there was a sudden pain in his head. The water around him turned red and he saw the dark black leg of the kikimora falling through the ice. He tried to call for Geralt as his vision began to spin. Water filled his lungs and he was so cold.

He was so cold…

Cold…

* * *

He couldn’t be dead. Jaskier knew that much. Death could not hold so much pain. His head felt like he’d been drinking solidly for a week whilst being hit repeated in the temple with one of Geralt’s swords. His throat was burning and his chest felt tight. He gasped a shaky breath of air and winced as he opened his eyes.

“Jaskier?”

“G’ralt?”

“It’s me. I’m here.”

Jaskier blinked a couple of times. Even the dim torches of Kaer Morhen were painfully bright. He was wrapped up in what appeared to be every fur in the keep and…. was this Geralt’s bedroom?

He struggled to sit up and Geralt gently pushed him back down. “Oi,” he grumbled hoarsely.

“Rest, Jaskier.”

“How’s your bard?” Another voice asked. Jaskier couldn’t work out whether it was Lambert or Eskel. His head was ringing too loudly.

“Ciri?” Her screams, that was the last thing he remembered. They had been so loud. She must have been dying. “Where’s Ciri?”

“She’s fine. She’s with Yen now, but she didn’t get knocked out by a kikimora and almost drown, Jask. I… I thought I’d lost you. I should have been closer. I should have kept you safe.”

Jaskier was surprised by the pain in Geralt’s voice. This was the same man who had tossed him aside like a dirty rag, and now it seemed as if that was the last thing the witcher wanted. Jaskier was also suddenly aware that someone was holding his hand. He coughed as the burning in his throat tickled him and he squeezed Geralt’s hand.

“I’m alive,” he tried to reassure the witcher.

“Barely.”

Jaskier licked his lips and looked up at Geralt. His head ached behind his eyes and the room was still too bright but he needed to see Geralt. He need Geralt to see him.

“I’m alive because you saved me, and not just today, my dear. You have saved me in so many ways and so many times.”

Geralt growled and shook his head. “You were only ever in trouble because of me. You were hurt… because of me.”

Jaskier frowned and closed his eyes with a sigh. They were talking about the dragon hunt now. He could feel it in his bones. “You were trying to protect me.”

Geralt laughed bitterly. “I couldn’t even managed to do that right.”

Jaskier gripped Geralt’s hand tightly. “No, but I forgave you. It’s time you forgave yourself, my dear,” He coughed again as he felt sleep try to pull him back under. “Be here, when I wake up?”

Geralt hummed. “Yeah.”

“I love you,” Jaskier mumbled almost incoherently as the darkness took him once more.

He didn’t hear Geralt’s reply. He didn’t hear the words he’d been longing to hear since he was eighteen. Geralt knew this and he would repeat them again once Jaskier woke up, and again and again and again until the bard slowly began to believe him. For now, Geralt settled for placing a kiss on Jaskier’s brow. His heart was beating too fast in his chest for any witcher but he was a witcher in love and for once in his life he would allow himself to enjoy that feeling.

“I love you too, Jask.”

**Author's Note:**

> Also on [tumblr](https://jaskierswolf.tumblr.com/post/638234287539421184/this-was-based-on-an-idea-by-amadcat570-which-i)


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